In the past thirty years much new information on the benefits of a healthy diet has emerged. In addition to the traditional food pyramid, vitamins and minerals, a healthy diet may include components such as soluble and insoluble fiber for promoting gastrointestinal health, phytosterols for lowering cholesterol levels and promoting heart health, antioxidants for discouraging cancer and other inflammatory diseases, and omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for promoting heart and brain health. There has been considerable commercial interest in providing deliverable forms of such components even though in many cases the component may be oxidatively unstable. For example, companies which have introduced or announced PUFA-containing products or materials include BASF SE, Blue Pacific Flavors, GAT Food Essentials GmbH, Kerry Group PLC, Martek Biosciences Corp. and Ocean Nutrition Canada. Some of these products or materials are said to employ prilling, spray drying or encapsulation to limit premature PUFA oxidation.
The ability to store refined or extracted triacylglycerols (TAGs), antioxidants or natural colors such as anthocyanins in a dried powder form is one of the biggest challenges for food processors, see e.g., Lawson, Harry, Food Oils and Fats, Technology, Utilization, and Nutrition, New York; Chapman & Hall, pp 18-22 (1995) and Gunstone, Frank D. and Padley, Fred B., Lipid Technologies and Applications, New York; Marcel Dekker, Inc., pp 169-199 (1997).
There is at present an ongoing and unmet need for improved methods and systems for packaging, storing or delivering PUFAs, TAGs, antioxidants, natural colors and other oxidatively unstable materials.